How to make guestionniar?
How to prepare a questionnaire Students are often very disappointed when the questionnaires or surveys they send out as part of their course have a very low response rate, and this may even affect the validity of their research. It is very important, therefore, that questionnaires be well prepared and well-constructed in order to minimize non-response. 1) 'Decide what you would like to learn from your questionnaire'. This will help you come up with questions to ask and the order in which to ask them. Ask yourself how you will use the data you obtain and set goals from there. 2) 'Starts writing out questions that can help you reach your goals'. Keep the questions and answers simple, using as few words as possible. Be careful not to lead your respondents into choosing an answer that doesn't truly match up with their beliefs. o For closed-ended questions, give a list of possible answers; for example, "Strongly agree, agree neither agree nor disagree, disagree or strongly disagree." You can use the same scale with ranking importance, satisfaction or likeliness to do an activity. Yes or no questions also work well, as do true/false questions. o For open-ended questions, make the questions as specific as possible so your respondent doesn't ramble on when trying to give an answer. This type of question is good for getting clarification on a previous question ("Why do you feel this way?") or getting an opinion without taking the chance that you're leading the respondent to answer in a certain manner. 3) 'Design your questionnaire based on the method in which it will be delivered'. Surveys delivered over the computer, in person and by mail can utilize pictures whereas phone interviews cannot. Respondents may be too shy to answer personal questions in person or by phone. Decide if you want to give clarifications to your questions if the respondent doesn't understand something; only interviews given by a live person can fit this need. 4) 'Ask questions that are very similar but worded differently'. This will help you avoid the respondent bias that inevitably presents itself with each survey and give you a better chance at finding the person's true opinion on a given topic. 5) 'Order the questions so that if a person says yes or no to a certain question, they bypass any questions that don't apply to them'. This will help keep the questionnaire focused and take less time to complete. Position your screening questions at the beginning so you're not wasting anyone's time. These questions are referred to as qualifiers. o If demographics are of major concern, ask these questions up front, but if not, asking them at the end is fine. o Asking personal questions or complicated questions at the end helps you build a rapport with the respondent so they're more likely to be open and honest. 6) 'Test your questionnaire before you begin surveying people; friends, employees and family can be good testers'. You may need to reword some things, rearrange questions, make additions or delete questions that don't help you reach your end goal. After you test, do trial number crunches to ensure you can properly collect the data you need; if not, make more adjustments to the questionnaire. General considerations: Keep the questionnaire as short as possible Most people are busy. Certain companies and organizations may also receive many other similar questionnaires and other requests from students around the country, or even internationally. If your questionnaire is long and complicated, it will greatly lessen the chances of receiving a response. Just stick to the essential or very useful information needed; discard any questions which relate to supplementary, secondary or unnecessary data. This means preparing well, and making sure that you know exactly what your aims are. Are you trying to identify attitudes, needs, behavior or what? Target the questionnaire carefully You must make sure that your questionnaire is completely relevant to the person you’re asking to complete it. If they’re unable to answer the first few questions, then they’re very likely to give up. So do some researches on who would be the most appropriate people to target within the organization, and always address your request to them directly. It may be a good idea to send a preliminary email to ask if it would be OK to send the questionnaire, and if in fact it would be relevant to the person. In addition, try to target people and organizations who you think are less likely to be bombarded by similar requests. Some sort of personal contact or relationship would of course be ideal; failing that, a phone call or even an email in advance may increase the chances of a response. Don’t just send your questionnaire to a general address. Consider the question of anonymity If your questionnaire contains sensitive or personal questions, you need to convince potential respondents that their answers will be confidential. If not, they will not respond. Maybe offer something in return Commercial questionnaires try to tempt people into replying by offering the chance to win holidays or money. You obviously can’t do this, but some sort of incentive is important to motivate people into responding. You could maybe offer to send the respondent a copy of the survey results, or make it clear in the introduction just how worthwhile your project is and that the respondent may benefit from it at some stage. It might just persuade them to answer. Don’t make people pay for stamps or phone calls! Use follow-up reminders Your target respondent may have every intention of replying, but has got lots of other important things to do to, so a polite reminder (or two) may be necessary. This is probably best done by email or phone, and you might have more chance of a response on a Friday than a Monday. Remember, however, the question of anonymity: it may be necessary to use codes to be able to track who has replied or not, but you must make it clear that the link between codes and personal will not be used and will be destroyed. One other possibility may be to have a shortened version which someone could quickly reply to by email or on the phone. It may be better than nothing.